Five year roadworks warning as pipes to be installed for seven mile Sheffield 'energy network' project
Sheffield is facing five years of roadworks after plans to build a seven mile energy pipeline through part of the city were approved.
The roadworks will take place after plans to lay pipes for a heating scheme for houses and business along a seven mile route were granted planning permission by Sheffield Council.
The scheme will see pipes carry heat along a route running from a site hear the Northern General Hospital, to Pitsmoor, Burngreave, Grimesthorpe, the Lower Don Valley, Tinsley and the new Waverley estate, near Sheffield Parkway.
It is an extension of a District Heating Network (DHN) operated to the east of Sheffield operated by energy firm EoN, which is powered by a 25MW biomass energy plant at Blackburn Meadows.
The existing network is only just over two miles long and Eon says the output of the biomass plant will increase to supply the anticipated additional network users.
There is already a separate, more extensive District Heating Network operated by Veolia more centrally within Sheffield, which runs nearly 27 miles and is powered by the energy from a waste plant off Bernard Road. The two networks are currently unconnected.
An official Sheffield Council planning department report states that most of the pipes for the new scheme will run underground. A large proportion will run through industrial or commercial areas.
But some greenspace will also be affected, including the playing fields of Fir Vale and Phillimore Schools as well as some highway verges, and bridges.
It will also run through the housing areas between Greenland Road and Darnall Road, Darnall, and the housing south of the Northern General Hospital off Whiteways Road and Whiteways Drive, Fir Vale.
The DHN extension will run close to three schools (Fir Vale School, Whiteways Primary School and Phillimore Primary School) and adjacent to Sheffield Grand Mosque on Grimesthorpe Road.
The official report states: “The only significant long terms visual presence of the development will relate to the pipework”
It also states it will provide low carbon energy infrastructure to residents and businesses to the east of Sheffield, but warns that the construction phase would cause disruption to the local highway network when the pipework is laid.
Construction is planned to start this year for the northern route of the pipeline, and early 2027 for the southern route. It is due to be finished late in 2029 for the northern route and late 2030 for the southern route.
But the council planning report adds: “Nonetheless the travel disruption associated with the development will remain significant, with nearly 11Km (seven miles) of the road network to the east of Sheffield affected (albeit progressively in phases) over a five year construction period, including heavily trafficked/ congested parts of the Local Highway Network on the A6102 and A6109.”
But it adds: “Although the residual travel disruption impact of the development will be significant, this is considered to be unavoidable if the District Heating Network is to be extended.
“The disruption will also be phased and individual sections of the local highway network will not be affected for the full five year period.
“Further it is assessed that the benefits of extending the District Heating Network, in terms of the expansion of low carbon energy infrastructure provision for homes and businesses in the east of Sheffield and associated greenhouse gas emissions reductions would outweigh the adverse impact of this temporary travel disruption.”
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“It is considered that there is no basis to conclude that residual cumulative impacts on the road network, following mitigation, would be severe, albeit there will undoubtedly be temporary significant residual local travel disruption associated with the works during the delivery of the project.”
Council officials say the development project overall will be of significant benefit in terms of the provision of low carbon energy, with the a main harms associated with the project relating to temporary travel disruption associated with the laying of the pipework and ecological and landscape harm associated with the removal of trees and other vegetation along the route.
But they added these can be mitigated to an acceptable degree through the imposition of planning conditions.